ASH News Daily - Monday, December 12, 2011 - (Page B-34)

Page B–34 ® ASH NewS DAily bility maintenance mechanisms essential for fundamental cellular processes and the identification of key determinants of cancer initiation. Receiving the Scholar Award is an incredible honor for her and a resounding endorsement of her research program. She will employ the award to apply novel, multifaceted approaches to investigate the role of NHEJ in the suppression of hematologic dysfunctions and malignancies associated with human immunodeficiency syndromes, with the long-term goal of identifying novel therapies. Samantha M. Jaglowski, MD A lifelong Buckeye, Dr. Jaglowski grew up in central Ohio and graduated from The Ohio State University in 2000. She went on to medical school at Ohio State, where she stayed for residency and fellowship, and where she is currently completing a blood and marrow transplant fellowship, as well as a Masters in Public Health. She plans to stay at Ohio State, Samantha M. where she will Jaglowski, MD specialize in experimental therapeutics and transplant for CLL, mantle cell lymphoma, and aggressive lymphomas. She met her mentor, John Byrd, MD, during her internship, when she developed an interest in CLL. Her ASH Scholar project, “A phase Ib/II study of PCI-32765, a Btk-inhibitor, and ofatumumab in patients with relapsed/ refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma and related diseases,” is evaluating the use of two non-chemotherapeutic agents in patients with relapsed and refractory CLL in the hopes of developing a novel treatment combination that is both effective and well-tolerated. In addition to the ASH Scholar Award, she has received the ASCO Young Investigator Award. Dr. Jaglowski is grateful to her mentors, Drs. Byrd and Steven Devine, as well as to her husband and mother, for their support. Dr. Jaglowski has three beautiful daughters, a 6-year-old and 4-year-old twins, as well as two beagles and a cat. Holbrook Kohrt, MD Dr. Kohrt, a hematology and oncology postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, under the mentorship of Ronald Levy, MD, currently investigates novel therapeutic strategies to enhance anti-tumor immunity. After graduating as valedictorian from Muhlenberg College, Dr. Kohrt attended Stanford University as the Monday, December 12, 2011 career-development awardS Scholars «« From Page B-33 of MDS. The current objective of his research program is to understand the contribution of MDS-associated miRNAs and their targeted genes to the pathogenesis of MDS. He hopes that understanding some of the molecular causes of MDS will enhance our insight into the biology of MDS and lead to novel targeted therapies. Catherine Yan, PhD Dr. Yan is an assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a faculty member of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and affiliated faculty member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. She earned her PhD in biology from Columbia University studying nuclear protein transport in yeast, which she continued to work on briefly as a postdoctoral fellow at Brandeis University before joining the laboratory of Frederick Alt, PhD, at the Immune Disease Institute and Children’s Hospital Boston in 1999. She employed germline conditional knockout and targeted knock-in mutation approaches in mice to investigate signaling and DNA repair mechanisms involved in lymphocyte functions and the suppression of genomic instability. These approaches led to the generation of mouse models of immunodeficiencies and hematopoietic and neural malignancies. The first studies using these models revealed the essential mechanism by which the canonical non-homologous endjoining (NHEJ) DNA repair pathway functioned to repair DNA breaks during IgH class switch recombination (CSR). Importantly, they led to the new discovery and characterization of the molecular signature of a robust NHEJ-independent alternative repair mechanism that not Catherine Yan, PhD only can catalyze CSR at high levels in the absence of NHEJ, but also is responsible for joining heterologous chromosomal breaks to generate translocations relevant to development of diverse cancers. Dr. Yan’s laboratory is dedicated to understanding the genomic sta- Baxter Foundation Scholkemias. She is active ar. During that time, he in the area of stem cell was a Howard Hughes transplantation and is Scholar and was awarded developing novel imthe ASH Research Trainmunotherapeutic aping Award for Fellows. proaches for lymphoid He continued his training malignancies using as an intern and internal infusions of allogeneic medicine resident at Stannatural killer cells. ford through the Clinical Investigator Pathway. Dr. William J. Kohrt’s research focuses Savage, MD on preclinical models of Dr. Savage received bone marrow transplan- Holbrook Kohrt, MD a BA in biochemistry tation and immunomodfrom Columbia Uniulatory antibody therapy. His work versity and an MD from Cornell provides the platform for transla- University. He also spent a year in tion to early-phase clinical trials. As the NIH Clinical Research Training a Stanford postdoc in the labs of Dr. Program during medical school and Levy and Samuel Strober, MD, Dr. is currently a PhD candidate in the Kohrt is developing novel vaccine Graduate Training Program in Clinistrategies that induce tumor cal Investigation at the Bloomberg antigen-specific immunity prior School of Public Health. Dr. Savto infusing the donor inoculum age took a non-traditional path to and improve graft-versus-tu- a career in transfusion medicine by mor reactions without exacerba- training first in pediatrics and pedition of graft-versus-host disease. atric hematology/oncology. Since This work will include a phase starting his pediatric residency in I, first proof-of-concept clinical 2001, Dr. Savage remained at Johns trial. His studies also include H o p k i n s efforts to identify and develop t h r o u g h immunomodulatory antibodies his training targeting immune effector cell and is now subsets, such as natural killer an assistant cells, which enhance the anti-tu- p r o f e s s o r mor activity of tumor-targeting of patholantibodies. ogy and pediatrics. Veronika Bachanova, MD Dr. SavDr. Bachanova received her MD age’s curfrom Komenius University Medical rent primaSchool in Slovakia in 1992 and con- ry research tinued her academic career by pur- project is suing a PhD in the School of Public to define William J. Savage, MD Health with a focus on supportive the mechacare and opportunistic infections. nisms of allergic transfusion reacIn 1995, Dr. Bachanova moved to tions. “Allergic transfusion reactions the United States and completed an are the most common reaction to internal medicine residency at the blood transfusion, but little is known Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. She about why they occur, in large part was a fellow in the Division of He- because there has been no comprematology, Oncology, and Transplan- hensive evaluation of allergic sustation at the University of Minnesota ceptibility and allergic mediators in from 2004 to 2007. For her work on blood donors, products, and recipiunderstanding the Notch pathway ents in the same study,” Dr. Savage in natural killer cell development, said. she received the ASCO Young InHe continues, “The Scholar Award vestigator Award and Ernest Mc- is critical for expanding the project Culloch and James on allergic transfusion reacTill Award for best tion mechanisms into the basic science article comprehensive study that by a new investiwe envisioned. Not only gator awarded by does the award provide the journal Biology the means to carry out the of Blood and Marproject, but also the Scholar row TransplantaAward gives legitimacy to tion. Dr. Bachanova studying a neglected area of joined the faculty research. Current practices at the University of for preventing allergic transfusion reactions are inadMinnesota to conequate, and results from the duct translational Scholar Award study may research in maligVeronika Bachanova, MD identify new screening or nant hematology. premedication strategies that Dr. Bachanova’s clinical interest is in the treatment of reduce the burden of these troubleblood cancers, lymphomas, and leu- some and costly reactions.” 

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ASH News Daily - Monday, December 12, 2011

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